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HK Actor-DJ Lawrence Cheng Played Xmas Songs On Radio In August To Get Back At His Bosses For Putting Him On The Graveyard Shift

Well, every day can be Christmas if you want it to be.

Hongkong veteran actor-host-DJ Lawrence Cheng got his start in radio way back in 1983 — that’s 39 years ago, if you’re keeping count.

Recently, the 67-year-old was a guest on TVB talk show Bong Bong Amigo! where he opened up about his days as a jock.

According to Lawrence, who is affectionately called ‘Dan Gor’ (or ‘Big Brother Dan’), he was given his own morning show very early in his career. Shortly after though, his boss told him that due to “insufficient funding”, they had to transfer him to do the graveyard 2am to 6am shift.

To say Lawrence was unhappy with the transfer would be an epic understatement —he considered it as a demotion, for starters.

“I thought really highly of myself then, I was young and spirited. So I stewed in anger. I couldn’t see how good [the company] was to me. I felt that the radio station treated me unfairly. How could you just switch me from the prime-time slot to the graveyard shift?

So Lawrence “plotted [his] revenge”.

“On my first night, I played ‘The Butterfly Lovers’, which is about 10 to 20 minutes long,” recalled Lawrence.

“Then I would play ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’, [and] a medley of Christmas tunes. It was August or September then. In an hour, I would only play three, four songs. And I would sit there [in the studio], and think ‘How could you guys treat me this way?’ I was really unhappy. The whole time I did the graveyard shift, I was filled with unhappiness. Until I received a letter.”

Lawrence with the hosts Amigo Chui & Mayanne Mak and fellow guest director Teddy Chen

Lawrence with the hosts Amigo Chui & Mayanne Mak and fellow guest director Teddy Chen

According to Lawrence, some listener had written him a letter chiding him for not taking his job seriously. “If you don’t like doing this programme, please don’t do it, I really need music during the graveyard shift to help me,” wrote the angry listener.

Lawrence said reading the letter felt like someone slapping him across the face.

“[This meant that] There were people listening [to his show] for them to want to scold me like that. I [didn’t realise] I came across that way to people. I thought to myself, “I have four hours, I could do whatever I wanted…. Why did I have to be so lazy!”

From that day, Lawrence started to write his own radio dramas, and he set his heart on doing it well.

It took about another three, four months before he received another letter from that listener, who gave Lawrence that much-needed wake-up call. “Lawrence, after the 4am news, can you help me play a song? Thanks!” read the letter.

Lawrence said he was so touched by what was written, his tears started to fall. “[The letter writer] finally acknowledged [my work] and wanted to dedicate a song. It showed he was [still] listening to my show,” he said.

Lawrence added that he was on the graveyard shift for nine months and he credits his time there for setting the foundation for his career. “I finally understood my own work attitude and its something I realised deeply [from that experience],” he said.

A year later, Lawrence became his station’s programme director, and movie offers and TV hosting gigs started pouring in.

Photos: HK01

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